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Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau
by George J. Dance Canadian | ethnicity = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | notableworks = Regards et jeux dans l'espace, Poesies completes | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | influences = | influenced = | awards = Maison Henry Morgan prize, Canadian Authors Association award | signature = | website = | portaldisp = }} Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau (June 13, 1912 - October 24, 1943) was a French Canadian poet and painter, who "was posthumously hailed as a herald of the Quebec literary renaissance of the 1950s."Roger Cardinal, "Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau", Oxford Companion to French Literature, Answers.com. Web, Jan. 28, 2011. He has been called Quebec's "first truly modern poet."David M. Hayne, "Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau", The Canadian Encyclopedia (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988), 874. Life Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau was the grandson of poet Alfred Garneau and great-grandson of historian Francois-Xavier Garneau. He spent his early years at his family's ancestral manor (which his mother had purchased) in Sainte-Catherine-de-Fossambault (now Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier), Quebec, where his cousin Anne Hébert was born in 1916."Books and writers": Anne Hébert Garneau moved to Montreal with his parents in 1923. There, he studied the classics at three Jesuit colleges: College Sainte-Marie de Montreal]], Jean de Brebeuf, and Loyola."Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau," Library and Archives Canada, Jan. 16, 2006, CollectionsCanada.gc.ca, Web, Apr. 29, 2011. In 1925, Garneau studied painting at Montreal's College des beaux-arts under Paul-Emile Borduas, Jean Palardy, Marjorie Smith and Jean-Paul Lemieux. He won a bronze medal and 2nd prize for a work of art. In 1934 he exhibited some paintings at the Galerie des Arts in Montreal and in 1937 he presented his painting "Sky Fall" at the Museum of Fine Arts."Biographie dÃ©taillÃ©e", Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau website (saintdenysgarneau.com). Web, Jan. 28, 2011. Still in his youth, he founded the monthly journal La Releve with his friends Paul Beaulieu, Robert Charbonneau, Robert Elie, and Jean Le Moyne.Eva Kushner, "Hector de Saint-Denys-Garneau Biography -(1912-1943)", Encyclopedia of Literature, JRank.org, Web, Jan. 28, 2011. In 1934, Garneau developed a rheumatic heart problem and discontinued his studies. He then devoted his time to writing poems, painting and music. In 1937, Regards et jeux dans l'espace (Looking and Playing in Space), his collection of poems, was published. "Disillusioned by the volume's reception, he withdrew to the seclusion of the family manor house ... where he died in 1943, apparently of a heart attack, while canoeing alone." Writing Garneau achieved some notice as a poet as a boy of 13, when his poem "Le dinosaure" took 1st prize in a province-wide essay competition. 2 years later he was awarded a prize by the Canadian Authors' Association for his poem "L'automne.""Biographie detaillee", Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau website (saintdenysgarneau.com). Web, Jan. 31, 2011. Garneau wrote poetry prolifically between 1934 and 1937; on a single day alone (October 22, 1937), he reportedly wrote 13 poems."Garneau, Hector de Saint-Denys", L'Encyclopedie de l'Agora, agora.qc.ca. In his lifetime, though, he published only a single slim volume: The 28-poem Regards et jeux dans l'espace, which "deals with his rural childhood, nostalgically evoking a state of grace beyond recall.... The poet's spiritualized landscapes transpose suffering and intermittent ecstasy into images of overgrown pathways, distant birds in flight, or forest fires, or again a snowbound house with shuttered windows, a key symbol of confinement and flawed security." "Radical in its form, with its unrhymed lines of various lengths, its lack of punctuation and its broken syntax, Saint-Denys Garneau's poetry was equally original in its themes (the spiritual adventure of the poet, the nature of artistic creation, the search for purity) and in its ironic distance." According to Quebec poet John Glassco (who translated Garneau's Journal into English), seeing his work in print left Garneau "stricken with horror: he felt he had exposed himself in a manner so much at variance with his natural reserve, his shrinking from all display, that he suffered a nervous breakdown. He had ... the sensation of having actually violated and soiled himself." One story is that he went back to the shops that were carrying his book, and bought up all 1,000 copies himself. In any case, Garneau "never published again."John Glassco, Introduction to Complete Poems of Saint-Denys Garneau (Oberon, 1975), 5-17. After Garneau's death, his unpublished poems were collected by Elie under the title "Les Solitudes", and published in 1949 together with Regards... as Poesies completes: Regards et jeux dans l'espace, Les solitudes. Garneau's "influence only became apparent after the publication of his Poesies completes in 1949," says the Dictionary of Literary Biography. "Since that time the number of studies on his life and work has multiplied considerably.... Perhaps only Émile Nelligan has been the object of so much critical attention" in Quebec."Saint-Denys Garneau", Dictionary of Literary Biography par,.1-2, BookRags. Web, Feb. 8, 2011. By 1960, Garneau was "considered the major precursor of contemporary French-Canadian poetry.""Biographical Notes: Saint-Denys Garneau (1912-1943)", The Newsletter, Bibliographical Society of Canada, 3:4 (June 1960), 3. Web, Feb. 8, 2011. Garneau's 1935-1939 diary was published in Montreal in 1954 under the title Journal, edited by Elie and Le Moyne and with a preface by Gilles Marcotte. Glassco published his translation, The Journal of Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau, in 1962. Also in 1962, Canadian poet F.R. Scott translated 10 of Garneau's poems into English for his book, Saint-Denys Garneau and Anne Hebert. Glassco published his translated Complete Poems of Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau in 1975.Thomas D. Ryan, "The Textual Presence of the Translator", Concordia University, thesis, 2003. Web, Jan. 28, 2011. Glassco's book won the Canada Council Award for translation that year.Brian Busby, "October 1st", The Dusty Bookcase, Oct. 1, 2010. Web, Jan. 28, 2011. Regards et jeux dans l'espace was also translated into English in 2011 by George J. Dance, and published that year as ''Looking and Playing in Space'' . Garneau's poetry has also been also translated into Spanish by Luis Vicente de Aguinaga, and was published in 2007 as Todos y cada uno."Luis Vicente de Aguinaga", Wikipedia espanol. Web, Jan. 28, 2011. Recognition Some of Garneau's poems have been set to music by Canadian contemporary classical composer Bruce Mather,"Bruce Mather", Wikipedia. Web, Jan. 28, 2011. and by Quebec folk group Villeray.Villeray, "Musique sur Saint Denys Garneau". Web, Jan. 28, 2011. Awards *Maison Henry Morgan (1926) *Association des auteurs canadiens / Canadian Authors Association (1928) *Canada Council Award (for English translation) (1975) Commemorative stamp On September 8, 2003, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the National Library of Canada, Canada Post released a special commemorative series, "The Writers of Canada", with a design by Katalina Kovats, featuring 2 English-Canadian and 2 French-Canadian stamps. 3 million stamps were issued. The 2 French-Canadian authors chosen were Saint-Denys Garneau and his cousin, Anne Hébert."50th Anniversary of the National Library / Canadian Authors," Canada Post, Web, Mar. 28, 2011. Public Art Saint-Denys Garneau, along with Octave Crémazie and Émile Nelligan, is commemorated by a large ceramic mural by Georges Lauda, Paul Pannier, and Gérald Cordeau at Crémazie metro station in Montreal. Entitled Le Poète dans l'univers, the work features an excerpt from his poem "Faction." Publications Poetry French *''Regard et jeux dans l'espace''. Montreal: 1937. *''Poésies complètes. Regards et jeux dans l'espace. Les solitudes''. (introduction de Robert Élie. Montreal: Fides, 1949; Montreal & Paris: Fides, 1968. *''Choix de textes'' (groupés et annotés par Benoît Lacroix). Montreal & Paris: Fides, 1956. *''A côté d'une joie''. Paris: La Différence, 1994. *''Recueil de poésies: inédit de 1928'' (edited by Giselle Hunt). Québec, QC: Éditions Nota bene, 2002. English *''St-Denys Garneau and Anne Hebert'' (translated by F.R. Scott). Vancouver, BC: Klanak Press, 1962. *''Complete poems of Saint Denys Garneau'' (translated by John Glassco). Ottawa: Oberon, 1975. *''Looking and Playing in Space (Regards et jeux dans l'espace)'' (translated by George J. Dance). Toronto: Principled Press / Baltimore, MD: Lulu Press, 2011. Prose *''Œuvres en prose'' (edited by Giselle hunt). Ville St.-Laurent: Editions Fides, 1995. Journal French *''Journal'' (préface de Gilles Marcotte). Montreal: 1954. **(edited by Giselle Hunt). Ottawa: BQ Press, 1996. English *''The Journal of Saint-Denys Garneau'' (translated by John Glassco; introduction by Gilles Marcotte). Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1962. Collected editions *''Œuvres'' (texte établi, annoté et présenté par Jacques Brault et Benoît Lacroix). Montréal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 1971. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, June 8m 2016. See also *Canadian poetry in French *List of Canadian poets *Timeline of Canadian poetry *Poets of other languages References External links ;Poems *Garneau poems in French and English (translated by George J. Dance) ;Audio / video *Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau at YouTube ;Books *Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau at Amazon.com ;About *Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau in the Encyclopædia Britannica *Garneau, Hector de Saint-Denys in the Canadian Encyclopedia. *Archived biography of Garneau at Library & Archives Canada *SaintDenysGarneau.com - official site. *Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau and the drama of poetic creativity," Dalhousie Review (.PDF). *Like the Wind Made Visible - review of The Complete Poems of Saint-Denys Garneau at Canadian Literature Category:1912 births Category:1943 deaths Category:20th-century poets Category:Canadian modernist poets Category:Canadian writers in French Category:Deaths from heart attacks Category:French-language poets Category:French Quebecers Category:People from Montreal Category:Writers from Quebec Category:Canadian poets Category:Poets